


Love, Freeze-Framed

by wibblyR



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Brooklyn Era, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-19
Packaged: 2018-02-17 23:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2327759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wibblyR/pseuds/wibblyR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's when Bucky poses without intending to that Steve loves him most, and his drawing fingers itch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love, Freeze-Framed

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, ok... I wanted to redeem myself for the trash fic. So, stucky fluff.  
> Don't read the last two lines if ya don't want angst.

Bucky posed.

He did not do it on purpose, at least not most of the time. But Steve had a keen eye for art, and he could not help but notice that every time Bucky stilled – and it was not often, for he was a creature of movement –, he looked like the liveliest statue ever sculpted.  
Bucky was a poser, it was true, but it was in the moments when he had no idea he was doing it that he was the most lovable.

The air seemed to hold its breath at the way his marble limbs lay effortlessly motionless, the way the flutter of life beneath his skin stopped almost completely, the way his breath puffed like the most natural gusts of wind, and by not even a quiver he troubled what was around him.

Except Steve.

He doesn’t know when his eyes started to feel helplessly drawn by the beauty of his best friend, doesn’t know when Bucky turned from restless boy to part-time statue (Steve loved him already then, had loved him from the instant the dark-haired boy had extended his dirty hand to him).

Living with Bucky had been a new kind of torture. Steve remembers Bucky standing in the kitchen watching the water boil, his eyes too intense, remembers him sprawled on the couch as if dead, remembers the outline of his sleeping form at night. Light always fell on Bucky in a way that emphasized his existence. The image of him was burned into Steve’s eyes, and it was only a matter of time before he started drawing Bucky as an unaware real-life model.

It was a hot evening and Bucky had worked at the docks all day. He came home exhausted and jumped on the sofa like a heavy, lazy cat, falling asleep immediately. He had been napping for an hour and would probably continue his night there. Steve should have woken him up.

He sat very carefully on the arm of the couch opposite Bucky’s head. He opened his sketchbook and sharpened his pencil, but did not start drawing before some time. He observed his model.

Bucky’s hair was mussed with sweat, darker than usual, and stuck in odd places. His face shone, but Steve could not figure out if it was perspiration too or the sun, beckoned by the salty skin; and it was open, brow calm and relaxed, a rare sight on the cheeky player. Steve liked to think he was the only one to see him like that. His nose was proud, his delicate eyelashes fell on square cheekbones, but his giving red mouth was slightly parted, as if on the verge of delivering a soft word. His chest breathed slowly but deeply beneath his greasy white sleeveless shirt in a sleepy disarray. One of his hands rested on his tummy, the slight gesture already tensing the muscles of his arm, so huge to Steve. The fingers had twitched so that they had revealed a gleaming sliver of lower-belly, and Steve could see how sharp his hipbone cut into him, he could see the coarse hair gathered at his belt buckle…

Steve dropped his eyes to the foot near him, disgustingly dirty and smelly – the other was on the floor. He knew he should be able to draw what was between Bucky’s middle and his feet, but could not bring himself to look. He replaced every thought he could possibly ponder with shame. He set to drawing the foot with ferocity.

He had to touch Bucky’s ankle gently, fresh fingers on burning skin, to push it ever so slightly in a better angle. He was so focused on shading the toes and their cracked nails that he did not see Bucky wake up, did not notice the change in his breathing.

He had opened his eyes silently at Steve’s touch and was watching him, frozen. His gaze followed Steve’s hands, scratching the paper, hovering over his foot, and the stark shadows on Steve’s concentrated profile. He wished he was the focus of that intent stare. He finally broke the silence in the softest voice he could.

“You could’ve asked me, you know.”

Steve jumped, clapped his sketchbook closed.

“I would have posed for you.”

What was Steve supposed to say ? _I prefer to draw you when you don't know it ?_

“How do you want me ?” His teasing grin.

“I was only drawing your foot”, Steve said flatly.

He made to leave; it was suffocating in here, where all the sun gathered before leaving for the night.

Bucky swiftly jumped on a crouch to his side of the sofa and grabbed Steve’s wrist, burning fingers on fresh skin.

“You can draw other things.”

“Like what ?”

“I have a few things unlike any of your real-life models.”

“Like your face ?”

A pause.

“Like my face. You can look at it and draw it all you want.”

“I already have to look at your face enough”, Steve laughed weakly.

“Then draw my body. You don’t look at that so often, right ?”

Steve tested Bucky’s grip.

“Bucky, let me go.”

Bucky did, but they both stayed in place, like a painting that didn’t make sense.

“Steve.”

Steve preferred to draw Bucky asleep because Bucky awake had eyes that pierced him like he was a secret. His feet were rooted to his spot, but Bucky sprang.

Steve felt warmth seeping like water through his shirt on his bony shoulder, and realized it was Bucky’s hand just before Bucky’s mouth closed on his, sleep-warm and damp with drool. Steve took two whole seconds to press back, hands curling on Bucky’s chest. The unbalance of Bucky’s position made them topple, and Bucky stretched back, hitting his head on the couch arm, so his whole length cushioned Steve’s.

His bulging arms were holding Steve tightly and Steve had difficulties breathing.

“M’sorry”, said Bucky in Steve’s hair, voice sounding strained. “I don’t care if you draw me or not, I just want you to look at me the way you look at art.”

And Steve closed his eyes, pressing his cheek to Bucky’s pounding heartbeat. _I already do_.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you.” The heat of Bucky’s hands on the small of Steve’s back was unbearable. Bucky regretting kissing him was unbearable. “Steve, say something.”

Steve’s blood thudded in his head, his face so hot it made him careless.

He craned his head upwards, his nose bumping on Bucky’s adam’s apple. He dislodged his cramped arms from between their chests and wrapped Bucky.

“I do,” he said boldly near Bucky’s earlobe. “I do look at you.”

Bucky exhaled a shaky sigh. Steve could feel it taking its roots in his belly. Bucky strengthened his hold on Steve and stilled.

After a moment, Bucky had fallen asleep again. Steve pressed his forehead to Bucky’s neck, willing his heart to slow and his blood to stop rushing south. He did not want to have to get up.

He imagined how they must look, Steve melting into Bucky’s embrace, so domestic; the busted couch, so familiar; the setting sun, so warm. An intimate picture.

Steve took the pose and slept.

 

 

 

 

The way the Winter Soldier moves is as threatening as hypnotizing.

The way the Winter Soldier stops moving is remembrance, and longing, and art.


End file.
